


Swish and Flick

by gwendee



Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animal Transformation, Cats, Class 3 E (Assassination Classroom), Confessions, Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, M/M, Magical Realism, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:48:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22079479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwendee/pseuds/gwendee
Summary: Karma doesn’t know what happened. He doesn’t know how to explain it, in both figurative or literal terms, and he doesn’t even know where to begin to possibly figure things out.Karma is a cat.“Fuck,” says Karma.It comes off as a meow.Written for Karushuu Week on tumblr!
Relationships: Akabane Karma/Asano Gakushuu
Comments: 21
Kudos: 312





	Swish and Flick

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what this is.
> 
> Bringing to you [Karushuu Week](https://gwendeeagain.tumblr.com/post/188891830199/karushuu-week-2019) day 7: Cat. 
> 
> Yes I know I'm very late and all this is being posted out of order, it's already 2020 but I'll get around to everything eventually.

**Swish and Flick**

**Day 7: Cat**

Karma doesn’t know what happened. He doesn’t know how to explain it, in both figurative or literal terms, and he doesn’t even know where to begin to possibly figure things out.

Karma is a cat. 

That’s right, Karma is a cat. A feline. A four-legged purring machine with a tail and whiskers and no opposable thumbs. A black, very sleek looking cat with bright amber eyes, twitching ears on the top of his head, and little cat paws.

How did this happen, you might ask? Was Karma not a fourteen going on fifteen middle school boy perhaps about 5 seconds ago? He was, and Karma has no goddamn clue.

“Fuck,” says Karma.

It comes off as a meow.

Karma the cat scowls at his reflection in the water puddle. He’s still on his street in the estate. He’d barely stepped out of his door on the way to school when he felt a very tingly feeling run up his spine, blinked, and there he was on all fours and no taller than a child’s knees. Karma’s stuck in a bit of a predicament because how do you rationalize and plan when one turn into a cat? Had he been a cat all this time and dreamt up his whole human life? Where were his clothes?

Almost instantly he thinks of Koro-sensei, because if anyone could know what to do about spontaneous animal transformations, it would be him. Koro-sensei seemed ridiculous enough that it just might be a bored cat’s fever dream, but Karma was pretty sure he’s a human and not going insane. Going at class 3-E would answer at least some of those questions, and it was the most logical thing to do about now anyways, not that he could open his house door without his keys or pick the lock with his cat paws, so he straightens up heads down the road. 

It takes Karma the cat the better half of the morning to make it down to Kunugigaoka and climb the ridiculous hill that his classroom sits upon. Karma had never appreciated human-length legs more than he did now. There had been a bit of a delay that saw Karma battling with his dignity about lapping up a puddle of water, isn’t he fortunate it rained last night? But he finally succumbs after much deliberation when he, in what must be pure animal instinct, jumps into a bush and crunches on a cricket. No amount of roadside water puddles could get  _ that _ memory out of his mouth.

So yes, after much mortification and gagging on his part, Karma does make it up the 3-E mountain, get into the building, and meow piteously at the shut door. Koro-sensei opens the classroom door and wow, he’s really tall and very yellow.

Koro-sensei looks down. “What’s a cat doing here?”

“Did someone say cat?” That sounded like Kurahashi. 

Karma pushes past Koro-sensei and steps into the classroom. His classmates start cooing at him and Nagisa says, “Karma would be disappointed he missed school today, he loves cats,” which proves that 1. Karma is a human being and his entire life prior had not been an over-imaginative cat and 2. He truly was, currently, a cat.

“Guys, I’m Karma,” he says, which comes off as a series of meows. “Ritsu, do you have a cat translator? I’m Karma Akabane! I turned into a cat!”

“It seems to be a Bombay, and they’re also known as mini-panthers!” Koro-sensei says. “Bombays are incredibly intelligent.”

“Heck yeah I am,” Karma answers. “Sensei, it’s me!”

“Incredibly vocal, too,” Koro-sensei says, “they cry and meow more than other breeds.”

“Nagisa!” Karma yowls, “it’s me! Recognize me, your best friend!”

“Aww, it seems to like you!” Kayano says.

“I’m not so good with animals,” Nagisa says warily, but he squats down and pats cat-Karma on the head. 

“This is getting nowhere,” Karma sighs. Maybe he should try communicating in a different way? He manages to bat Nagisa’s pencil off the table and wrestles with it for a minute before Nagisa gives up trying to retrieve it, wary of Karma-the-cat’s scratches. Karma battles with the pencil for a few minutes, with his thumbless cat paws and his teeth, and then gives up and flops on the floor in resignation.

“Aww, it got tired of playing with Nagisa’s pencil,” Yada says.    
“Alright class,” Koro-sensei says, and in a few seconds Karma’s fur is ruffled as he is relocated to the empty table at the back of the class which is, coincidentally, his own. “You can sit here for a bit,” Koro-sensei says, and in a blink there is a dish of water and another with sardines laid out for him. Karma is glad it’s not cat food, but after the events of the morning, he isn’t sure if he wants to eat anything for a bit. His stomach hasn’t quite settled yet.

Besides, Karma’s feeling sleepy. Cats sleep a lot, don’t day? The walk from his house to the 3-E classroom was already daunting to a human, and suddenly Karma is exhausted. He opens his mouth in a wide yawn and sprawls on his seat. Maybe he should close his eyes for a bit.

His eyes snap open. “Guys?” 

The classroom is empty, and the lights are out. He looks out the window to see the sun setting. Did he seriously sleep the whole day away? Was he that tired?

“Hello!” Karma jumps a few feet in the air in shock, then whirls around to see Ritsu’s avatar smiling at him, her screen bright. 

“Sorry about the scare,” Ritsu says, “class is over, so everyone went home! I’m the only person here, well I’m not a person, I’m a computer so it doesn’t bother me. Oh, but you’re not a person either, you’re a cat, you don’t understand me. Why am I talking to you?”

“I do understand you, I’m Karma,” Karma tries.

“Aww,” Ritsu says, “you’re so cute.”

Dammit. Karma needed to find another solution. “Bye Ritsu,” he says, and he heads out. He should try breaking into his house so he’d have at least somewhere to stay the night, he doesn’t want to sleep in the classroom and the walk back home should take him at least an hour anyways. He’d seen some cats pick locks with their claws, if he gets a leg-up with the flowerpot by the door maybe he could try too?

It’s dark out when he makes it down the hill but everything seems clearer than ever. Karma-the-cat has cat night vision, that’s pretty handy. He swishes his tail and starts on the path back home when he spies someone walking out of the main campus - who the hell stayed that late? 

Upon closer inspection, it’s Asano. What a nerd, he was probably studying in school till late, even though their examinations have ended. “Second-place,” Karma snickers, and Asano yelps and whips around in Karma’s direction, fumbling with his books.

“No need to worry, just a regular old cat,” Karma sighs, although if he remembered how well his black fur blended into the background he would have tried harder to give Asano a scare. You know, just for fun. 

Asano crouches down and stares at Karma. In the dark his eyes seem to glitter a stunning violet, stark against the darkness of their surroundings. It’s kind of pretty, like the moon, but even if you shot Karma he would never admit it. 

“Hi,” Asano says warily, a hand outstretched. “Hi, cat.” His voice is soft and a slightly higher pitch, and it was interesting to see how people interacted with animals, especially after a full hour of being coddled by his classmates. Won’t they be embarrassed about baby-talking Karma once they figure out who the cat is. That is, if they never find out he ate a cricket and use that as fodder.

“Sup,” Karma says. “Don’t suppose you speak cat or could give me a lift to my house, huh?”

Asano looks left and right, visible confusion on his face, and then he says, “where do you live?”

Karma freezes, and surveys Asano closer. He’s staring back like he’s trying to figure something out, a contemplative look on his face. Did he… did he speak cat? Is Karma overthinking this? “Where do you live” wasn’t the… oddest question, he thinks, he’d had a lot of variants of the question along the lines of “where did you come from?” or “how did you get all the way here?” from his classmates, although Asano had asked it in a far more… human way.

Oh fuck it, Karma thinks. He’s a goddamn cat. How much weirder could it get?

“My name is Karma Akabane, I turned into a cat this morning and I don’t know why, I went all the way up to 3-E but no one knew I was their classmate and they all thought I was a cat,” and Karma becomes increasingly horrified as the surprise on Asano’s face grows with each word he meows.

“Oh my god, Karma?!” Asano gasps, and okay, turns out Asano speaks cat, which, what? What? 

Asano drops his books and gets down on his knees. “You’re a cat? How did- how did this happen? Who transfigured you?”

“I don’t know?” Karma yelps. “Asano, you talk to cats? You’re not weirded out by me being a cat and why do you sound like you might have an idea of why I’m a cat?!”

“Of course I’m weirded out, this is not something that happens often,” Asano says, and he opens his bag to stuff his books inside. Why was he even carrying them when he could have just done that? “I’m going to pick you up now okay?”

Wait what? “Personal space, man!” Karma says, hopping away as Asano’s arms reach for him. Asano scowls.

“Come on, I walk faster than you, and we’re not going to your place, we’re going to mine,” Asano says, but his voice lacks the hostility Karma is so used to being on the receiving end of. “I get this is scary but we can figure out what to do together, okay?”

“You know something,” Karma accuses.

“Maybe,” Asano sighs. “This isn’t the best conversation to have in the open, but let me tell you it has something to do with my, um, ability to speak to you as a cat, in a way.” He opens his arms this time, letting Karma decide instead of trying to grab him. Karma eyes him warily but Asano makes a case for himself and if he knows something about why Karma is a whole ass cat and no one else does, Karma would need to follow him anyways.

“If I go missing, 3-E would launch a search party for me,” Karma warns, but he steps into Asano’s arms and lets himself get picked up like a baby. 

“I know,” Asano says, voice gentle.

The walk back is quiet but much faster than what Karma could achieve in his four legged form. Cats have surprisingly weak staminas, which is why they were ambush predators and not persistent ones, Karma guesses. The night air is chill on the streets but Asano is warm, and Karma finds himself shivering until Asano adjusts Karma and tucks him into his jacket which, weird, but Asano seems fine with it and Karma’s cold as fuck, so it would have to do.

Karma looks up. Asano’s face is flushed the shade of Karma’s human hair color. Karma snickers, and then blanches when he realizes he’s probably the cause of it, given that he’s rather literally in Asano’s clothes right now. He’s glad they’re not talking, he doesn’t think he can handle the mortification of the situation. This is way worse than the cricket.

Asano’s estate is large and exactly how Karma expects it. When they get to the door, Asano hesitates at the door like he’s not sure how to open it which, okay, Karma’s also the problem. He’s about to tell Asano he can handle the cold air for a few seconds while he gets his keys but then Asano whispers something too fast and too foreign for Karma to catch, there’s the sound of something unlatching from the inside, and the door swings open of its own accord.

Karma gapes, speechless.

Did… did Asano just… do magic?

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll explain everything later,” Asano says quietly. He kicks the door close in an unnecessarily normal fashion but Karma wants to see him say another spell and do more door magic? What the hell was that? Asano was a magician? What?!

Asano adjusts his hold on Karma and quickly toes off his shoes. The inside of Asano's house is tasteful and classy the same way you would imagine the cover of an interior design catalog to be, but there are lived-in touches like the row of shoes by the door or the jacket draped over the couch. It was strangely neat, in Karma’s opinion, because he’d been in houses far messier than this poster home for HGTV’s house hunters.

“Asano?”

Asano jumps and inadvertently squeezes Karma tighter to his chest in the startle. He whirls around and Karma sees the Principal, leaning against a wall and sipping from a cup, an amused eyebrow raised at Asano’s skittishness and, of course, Karma-the-cat’s existence. Is he aware his son is a magician? Is he one, too? Can he talk to cats?

“You finally got a familiar,” the Principal says, and looks over Karma with a curious air. That answers the question of his knowledge over Asano’s apparent magical ability. “Although he’s not quite what I expected, I didn’t take you for a black cat cliche, Asano.”

Isn’t it weird as hell to call your son by his last name, also known as your last name, in your actual house? How far does this family take their professionalism? From what Karma knows, Asano senior is a single father, so there wasn’t any personal effects or the presence of a mother to demand family bonding or something similar but isn’t that still hella weird?

“He’s isn’t a familiar,” Asano says, sounding defensive. “He’s Karma, and he-”

“You named your familiar after your crush?” The Principal wrinkles his nose, looking both weirded-out and amused. Wait, what did he say?

“Oh my god!” Asano screams. He tosses Karma onto the couch, and he lands with a soft “oomph”, and Karma watches as Asano combusts on the living room floor, looking between Karma and his suddenly confused father with his shoulders up to his ears. Then, of all things and Karma would never forgive him for this, he bolts up the stairs, leaving Karma with a rather bemused Principal.

“So…” Karma starts, “I don’t suppose you can talk to cats too, huh.”

The Principal looks at him. “You’re not a familiar,” he says.

“No,” Karma agrees, “I’m Karma Akabane. I turned into a cat this morning and no one in 3-E figured it out, but I ran into Asano on the way back and he said he could help.”

“Huh,” the Principal says. He takes a sip of his tea. “Looks like I just outed my son.”

There’s a very, very awkward pause between them.

Asano runs back down, carrying a stack of books. He’s still blushing and he doesn’t look Karma in the eye, but he dumps the stack on the coffee table and heads past his father into the kitchen. “I’ll let you check my work before I transfigure him back,” he mumbles, but Karma’s excellent cat-aided hearing picks it up.”

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” the Principal says good-naturedly, but then he makes a face. “But he’s a cat, so  _ please _ don’t-”

“ _ Dad _ ,” Asano whines quietly. Karma watches the two exchange words that Karma can’t pick up, and Asano returns with a bowl of water and a plate of chicken which he sets on the floor. He doesn’t look at Karma but sits a bit aways and cracks the first book open. Karma watches him take notes until he gets bored and the chicken is looking better by the minute, so he eats it, drinks the water. Then he’s bored again. 

Asano must be really deep into his notes because he jumps again when Karma brushes up against him, and immediately blushes. “I-”

“It’s cool you have a crush on me,” Karma says. He wants to tease but he also wants back in his human body, and if Asano is flustered around him constantly now that his ‘secret’ is out, he wasn’t going to talk to Karma and the wait is going to be incredibly boring. “I know I’m attractive, I mean, look at me! Well, not right now, I guess,” and Karma watches Asano’s lips quirk up a little in laughter.

“Look, I know something embarrassing about you, so I’ll tell you something in return.” Karma steels himself for a moment, but hey, this is a boy who apparently has a crush on him. Maybe this would change his mind although… Karma, oddly enough, hope it doesn’t. He doesn’t feel like processing those thoughts now. “I ate a cricket this morning.” 

Asano freezes. “Why?”

“Fuck if I know,” Karma says. “I’m a cat.”

Asano stares at Karma wordlessly for a while, then starts giggling. It’s a very cute sound, Karma didn’t know he could laugh like that. He hides his pink cheeks behind his hand but smiles, and Karma takes this as a sign he’s feeling better. He slides up to Asano and stares at the book, which is open to a page of what seems to be about transformation spells. 

“So you’re a magician?” Karma says. 

“I’m a witch,” Asano says. “Magicians are illusionists and all they perform are tricks. This,” he taps the book, “is real. Witch is a gender neutral term, before you ask. Harry Potter created an unnecessary binary, wizards are different.”

“I know that,” Karma says. He stretches and flexes his claws a few inches away from Asano's face, but he doesn't even flinch. They talk, for a surprisingly long time, even though there are stretches of silence as Asano strikes a chord and picks his work back up, but there are others where he looks close to throwing something out of frustration and Karma slides up next to him, vibrating like a purring machine.

Eventually Asano hops up from the couch and disappears into his father's study, presumingly to allow him to check his work or whatever. And then Asano sits across him, hands outstretched, and he begins humming a low tune - no, those are words, he's slowly chanting some sort of incantation. Karma feels a tingling across his body and when he looks over himself, he's wearing a little glow and his fur ruffles in the non-existent wind. The tingling grows warmer and heavier, and Karma feels a compulsion to fall asleep, but he wants to stay awake for this-

-Karma opens his eyes. "Holy fuck."

Asano is smiling at him. "Welcome back," he says softly, and Karma looks down at himself. He has hands again and is thankfully clothed. He brings them up to his face, stretches and stands up on two legs. 

“I liked you better as a cat,” Asano mutters.

“But if I was a cat,” Karma says, “I couldn’t do this, now, could I?” Asano opens his mouth to say something but Karma grabs his forearm and leans in. Asano takes in a sharp breath and he turns an impressively adorable scarlet as Karma kisses him. It’s a simple press of lips that lasted barely a second, but Asano is already pulling away.

When Karma looks up, Asano is glaring at him. Karma gets the idea that he’s fucked up when Asano says hotly, “do you think that’s funny? Messing with my feelings?!”

“I,” Karma says, but Asano throws the nearest thing at him. It’s the magical spells book and it's heavy.

“You asshole!” Asano snaps, but his eyes are wide and betray his hurt. “You don’t even like me, leave me alone!” He scrambles back and Karma knows he’s going to bolt again.

“Wait,” Karma says, jumping to his feet grabbing onto his arm. “I didn’t mean it as a joke or to tease you,” he says, but his reason suddenly feels weak in his ears. “I… wanted to say thanks.” The moment the words leave his mouth he knows he’s just digging a bigger hole for himself but in all honesty Karma didn’t know what was running through his mind. Did he want to say thank you? Come onto Asano as an experiment, tease him about the crush? Karma thinks it’s likely a combination of all three, and he admits it’s terrible timing, especially after the fresh admission. 

“I don’t want your thanks,” Asano hisses, wrenching his hand away and his eyes glitter. It’s not because of the moonlight now and Karma feels horrible. Asano spent hours trying to turn him back into a human and Karma is just an insensitive asshole.

“I’m sorry,” Karma says quietly.

“Get out,” Asano says wetly, and rubs his eyes with the back of his hand. He runs out of the room and Karma looks up to see the Principal watching with disapproval, scowling.

“I didn’t mean,” Karma tries weakly, but at the stern look the Principal shoots him, he quietens.

The Principal sighs. “Just go, Akabane. He’s not going to speak to you,” there’s a pause, “or me, for that matter.” 

“Right,” Karma mutters. He picks up his bag. “Sorry about… I’ll apologize another day.”

He gets more time to think about his feelings at home, when he can finally unlock his doors with his keys like a regular person. It’s half past 1 in the morning when he makes it back, and the first thing Karma does is take a hot shower. It’s about 2 when he finally slides into bed, but he can’t sleep, with the reveal that magic apparently exists, the Asanos dabble with it, and he’d massively fucked up and hurt Asano’s feelings. 

It’s not like he kissed Asano against his own will, Karma thinks, he knows he’s not straight. He doesn’t think he likes Asano in the sense that he has a crush, because he’d never thought about it until now, and because Asano had been a rather infuriating antagonist that all Karma ever thought about regarding him was how to be on top, not how to be…  _ on top _ . Karma flushes. 

Asano is attractive. Karma thinks he’s cute. He’s hella smart, annoyingly so. He’s an asshole that looks down on others and thinks he’s hot shit. “So do you,” Karma tells himself, with a voice that sounds suspiciously like Nakamura’s. 

Asano… likes animals. Or has experience with them, at the very least, he clearly knew how to handle Karma as a cat. Out of the public eye he was… soft and bashful, but granted it may have been the embarrassment from the admission of his crush, but… why does Asano even have a crush on Karma? They scarcely interacted. 

Crushes didn’t always make sense, Karma thinks. They just were. Did he like Asano that way, or at least enough to try?

It's 3am now. Karma wants to try.

He finds Asano the next day before school starts - he woke up early for this, he got possibly 4 hours of sleep - and intercepts him in the hallway, some students curiously looking in his direction. From the corner of his eye he sees some of his classmates, on their way to the mountain who stopped to watch Karma.

“Leave me alone,” Asano says, but Karma’s having this conversation. He grabs Asano by the wrist and a hush falls over the gaping crowd, which, perhaps Karma shouldn’t have picked the middle of the school hallway to have this confrontation but he knows Asano would avoid him forever if he had the choice. They’ve made enough of a spectacle of themselves already so Karma might as well get his message across.

Asano tries to pull away. “Let me go, you deviant-”

“I like you!” Karma blurts.

The entire hallway freezes. Asano stares at Karma wide-eyed, and then turns pink. Next to him Sakakibara has a hand outstretched in an aborted attempt to stop Karma, but he immediately drops it and leaps out of the way. Isogai and Maehara are mid-reach to wrestle Karma away from Asano, but they pause too and exchange glances with each other and the other main-campus students, united in witnessing this scandalous moment.

“I like you,” Karma says again, and this time when he pulls Asano closer to him, he’s met with no resistance. “I think you’re cute and attractive and I like having conversations with you. I like your competitiveness but I also like it when we’re not fighting.” Asano continues staring in shocked silence. Karma takes in a deep breath. 

“I want to take you out,” he continues. “On a date, this Saturday. We can go to a cat cafe,” he pauses, “I don’t have your number. Can I get it?”   


Asano gapes. There’s another long pause, peppered with the frantic whispers of all their schoolmates and hushed curses, but Karma keeps staring. The bell rings but nobody makes a move. A full minute passes, Asano refuses to meet his eye, and Karma's disappointed but he knows when he gets his answer and drops Asano’s hand. “I’m sorry if I overstepped,” he says, referencing both today and yesterday ago. “I do like you, and I never meant to-”

Very quickly Asano snatches Karma’s arm back up. He pulls out a pen from out of nowhere and hurriedly scribbles something on the back of Karma’s hand - a phone number - and then he drops it, takes a deep breath, and then stalks off like he owns the school (in a way he did), people jumping out of his way.

“Holy shit, that’s so cute,” Karma says, and the hallway explodes in exclamations. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not the happiest with this one, I think it needs work but I don't think I'll find the energy to revise it any further so I'll post it as it is for now. It's cute but a little odd? And the boys seem a tad too OOC for a bit, but...
> 
> Oh well. Scratch that. In light of Karushuu week here are some of my Karushuu fic recommendations!  
> [morning by eatfruittt](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21994675) is cute, short and just soft.   
> [Together, We Can Conquer The World by ProudHaikyuuTrash](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21959695) is a longer fic written for Day 1: Christmas/Birthday and features aged-up 3-E as well. Adorbs  
> [embrace missed courage by closedcaptioning](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21633997) is a kinda-short fic and also very cute.


End file.
